


A Companion

by rexcrystallis (flammabellum)



Series: A Companion [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Drug Use, Drug-Induced Sex, Drugs, Dubious Consent, F/M, IgNoct, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-19 03:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10630845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flammabellum/pseuds/rexcrystallis
Summary: I struggled to remember the stories he would read to me, and I would remember something about ducklings and I would declare he was the Mama Duck, and I was his duckling, and that I would follow him to the ends of the earth.And the nickname was born. Iggy Ducky.





	1. Children

The Scientia family had served the royal line of Lucis Caelum for as long as anybody could remember. There was always one Scientia assigned to a member of the Lucis Caelum, even if the member was of a lesser branch of the Blood – the Scientia were assistants, advisors, glorified errand boys and girls who despite the nature of their job, took great pride in serving the royal family in whatever way they could.

 

They were not without any small influence, the Scientia. Many members were given honorary posts in the Lucian government, but their key areas were finance and the interior, some getting assigned even in education and health. In centuries past, the Scientia even intermarried into the royal line, but this tradition became heavily sanctioned and eventually forbidden when the time came that there were more Scientia than Lucis Caelum. It was all a very messy affair that almost tore Lucis in half, and the reigning King at the time forced all Scientia to sign the Instrument of Quitclaim, which effectively made them and their future sons and daughters renounce any and all claims upon the Lucian throne.

 

Some say the Scientia were heavily shortchanged at the time, but despite that, future members of the family were quite happy in their station and their servitude.

 

_Plus Ultra_ , that was their family motto. Their coats-of-arms was a stylized Bahamut, similar to the Lucis Caelum’s, but theirs were silver in color and was crossed by two daggers, and framed by three daisy blossoms at the bottom.

 

\--

 

My earliest memory of him was in the kitchen. In fact, most of my earliest memories of him was in the kitchen-- it was either in the expansive royal kitchens, with its sprawl of marble floor, an impressive island with a black marble countertop, and then stainless shelves, ovens, stoves. If not there then in my father's smaller, private kitchen, or my own-- though of course at the time I've no idea yet of the extent of what I did own, as a Son of Lucis, and eventually, Crown Prince.

 

He smelled of cake. Flour, something sweet -- sugar, honey. A hint of berries clinging to his cufflinks. I was his eternal pest; I loved being near him, clutching his shirt with my left hand, a handful of fabric, while I sucked judiciously at my right thumb. Always wide-eyed with whatever he was doing at the time. I was three, he was four. Four and already puttering about in the kitchens, cooking this and that. And I was his pest, perpetually following, clutching his shirt.

 

He was my only friend at the time, marginally close to my age. And so, naturally, my world revolved around him. He was my sun and my moon, my stars and my cloudy sky. He never pushed me away that other rough children do; always patiently letting me cling to him, letting me hug into his side, always, always clutching a handful of his shirt.

 

Back to my earliest memory. He was always in the kitchen, cooking this and that. The chefs loved supervising him, teaching him how to cut things with a knife, telling him how to shape cookies, telling him how to squeeze an orange just right to bring out the most pulp and juice. He learned. Learned and absorbed everything they told him, like some great insatiable sponge. And I was at his side, sucking my thumb, vaguely comprehending anything.

 

He made cookies, as I recall. Clumsily shaped, but they were heavenly, and melted fairly easily on my tongue, swirling a taste of butter and milk in my mouth. He gave me my sweet tooth. He is entirely the one to blame for it, and I suppose he corrects it by feeding me greens. I hated greens at the time.

 

He gave me the cookies, star-shaped, slightly burnt things, and I was happy to gorge on them regardless, crumbs around my mouth. Behind his glasses he watched me with a loving look, and he smiled. I babbled something, and I poked one of the cookies to his lips. He takes a bite. I would always share what I owned and possessed with him. Even my misery and sadness, but that was not until much later.

 

For now we were children.

 

\--

 

I understand his mother served my mother the late queen. They had both perished in the car crash that killed my mother a year before I had the memory of the star-shaped cookies melting in my mouth. His smile. How he chomped down on the cookie I pushed onto his lips. How he hugged me after, like a stuffed bear he would not be rid of.

 

Oddly enough I remember little of my mother. They say you are supposed to recall some of her - a touch maybe, the warmth of her hand, a vague recollection of a voice singing some lullaby. I did not. I was a blank slate when it came to my mother, and what I recalled of her were the great canvas paintings hung in the Hall of the Queens. Her long black hair in soft waves, tapering around a small, oval face, like a doll's. Slightly hooded eyes that my father told me was the death of him, in thrall, when he'd first seen her during their engagement ball in Altissia many years ago. She wove pearls in her hair. As if she was sea-borne, a daughter of Leviathan, come out from the foam.

 

The paintings were all I had, and even then, she did not interest me.

 

\--

 

His father served my father, as was expected of Scientia. He looked like his father -- at least, the shape of the face, the sea green of his eyes. The bridge of the nose. But everything else was his mother's. Impeccable, that's how I would describe his father. In portraits and state pictures he was always no-nonsense in crisp suits, black or pinstriped, not a cufflink or a button out of place, pepper hair slicked back from a handsome face, sculpted with cunning that ran in a deceptively serene undercurrent. His father perished in battle, I was told, in Cleigne, that left my father with a bad limp that grew worse with the strain of the Ring of the Lucii, and Clarus Amicitia forever complaining of aches down his right arm whenever it got too cold.

 

He rarely talks of his parents. After his father perished, his uncle Antoninus was pulled from the Ministry of Defense and installed as Chancellor. His uncle raised him since, and some other relative was pulled from their ancestral lands in Leide and installed in Antoninus' vacated post.

 

\--

 

During those days he slept with me. I would not be parted from him, and the smallest attempt to take him from me and I would explode into a tantrum that frightened my maids and manservants. I would scream, not cry-- scream to the utmost of my lungs, ball my hands into fists as I clutched his shirt and his vest, scrabbling for further purchase onto his small frame. I would scream until I went purple in the face, and this I know frightened the staff into submission and into giving me what I want - _him_. They would relinquish their hold upon me, and I would immediately curl back against his side, suck on my thumb. For now, the angry little prince was placated.

 

My bed was his bed, and my food was his food. I would not be parted from him. We would share books, and he was the first to read Cosmogony to me - haltingly, in his quiet boy's voice, and I listened in rapture though I comprehended not, just hanging onto his voice.

 

He was patient with me. Whenever I cried he eased me with his hugs, his touches, his quiet voice whispering I'll be alright, I'll be okay, he was there and he won't let anything bad happen to me. I believed him. Believed every word that fell from his lips, every story told, every discovery.

 

He bathed with me, and we sloshed around the bath water and I would put bubbles on his hair and I would show him my rubber duck. I think I was four, five, when I told him he was the duck, and he asked why. I struggled to remember the stories he would read to me, and I would remember something about ducklings and I would declare he was the Mama Duck, and I was his duckling, and that I would follow him to the ends of the earth.

 

And the nickname was born. _Iggy Ducky_.

 

\--

 

I started schooling not in a public school, but in the old, exclusive school in Insomnia that catered exclusively to the children of the royal family and nobility. I was a small child, the smallest in my class, and the tailored uniform - khaki shorts, white collar short sleeve shirt with the school's coat of arms embroidered upon the right breast pocket, topped with a black sleeveless vest lined with silver at the edges, also with the embroidered school sigil by the right breast - fit oddly upon me. I remember commenting that it fit me like a pillowcase, the uniform. The maid who dressed me laughed, pinched my cheek lightly, and topped eveything off with the obligatory school bucket hat - also with the coat of arms.

 

Iggy Ducky was waiting for me by the hallway, also clad in the same uniform, and I ran toward him, holding his hand. His glasses were thick-framed and made his eyes look bigger than they are, and I told him he looked like a bug of some sort. He laughed. He always laughed at my tiny jabs. And I loved making him laugh, even then.

 

We went to school and he parted from me. I was confused. I reached for his hand and he gently shook his head and made placating gestures. But I didn't understand. I inhaled and prepared to bring out the biggest tantrum I have thrown so far, but he was quick-- he hugged me, kissed my cheeks, and as I choked out the first sob he hugged me tighter and explained we weren't in the same class. He was an older boy, and therefore took more advanced classes than I did. But that didn't mean we couldn't see each other at recess; he would be waiting for me by that orange tree, and we would eat lunch and we would play, but for now I must behave, for him. Could I do that? Could I be a good boy and behave, for him, for my father the King?

 

I could. I promised. Swore an oath, crossed my heart.

But when he walked away to finally go to his classes, I felt something break in me. I couldn't bear watching him leave.

 

\--

 

The hours in school I whiled away with the promise of seeing him during breaks. I endured the alphabet, the nursery rhymes, the coloring exercises, story time and writing exercises, dangling before myself the hope that just a bit more-- just a bit, and I could see him.

 

Whenever the bell rang I was already out of my seat, lugging around my lunch box, and I would run toward the orange tree and I would, without fail, already find him there. I would reach him and I would hug him and he would ask me about my classes and I would boast about the stars stamped by the teacher by my arm, and I would show him today's masterpiece - some stick figure with a crooked rainbow, or perhaps him - I would always draw him and his big glasses and his shorts and he would laugh as he distributed our sandwiches.

 

Even then he wasn't friendly. He wasn't as vibrant and outwardly charming as Prompto, wasn't sleek as Gladiolus. But he was quiet, and his quiet was his charm, even when we were small boys. The other kids would try to befriend him, and he would give them polite conversation or lend them his pencils or his crayons or give them spare sheets of pad paper, but he never talked to other children as much as he talked to me, and I felt - even then - fiercely possessive of him.

 

I would pointedly lean into his side when another child would approach us or would try to share the sandbox, or join us at the swings, and I would scowl and bite my thumb and clutch a handful of his uniform, rumpling it. When the teacher told him to play with other kids, he would first turn to me and assure me we can play later, and yet I watched him jealously from across the playground, and I would sometimes be overcome with an urge to punch the nose of his playmates.

 

Thankfully I never did any of those things, though it had been said that I was prone to sulk whenever he was parted from me.

 

\--

 

After the tedium of school we would return to the Citadel, nap beside each other in one of the sun rooms or the play rooms, carelessly sprawled beside each other, me burrowed into his side, a book overturned upon his stomach as he turns his nose toward my hair.

 

We would wake, and he would go to the kitchen to make us snacks, and ever dutiful I would follow him, always clutching a handful of his shirt, sucking away at my thumb, waiting with muted excitement as to what he would feed me this time.

 

When the cake was done, or the macarons, or the pasta, we would return to our sunroom and as the afternoon painted the Citadel's gardens with soft orange we would be busy with homework - tracing lines, coloring this and that, and he would check my work and I would try to read his books.

 

After that was the best time of the day - play time, and I would chase him across the gardens shrieking my delight whenever I captured him, circling his waist as best as I could with tiny arms, sending us both toppling forward onto the grass.

 

I recall one afternoon when a butterfly of the most glorious orange and black pattern landed on his nose. He stared at the insect cross-eyed, his glasses askew, and I roared in my laughter.

 

\--

 

I eventually stopped sucking my thumb. His glasses' frames eventually thinned a bit. School was more bearable, but we still saw each other during breaks. I could bear now to be slowly parted from him, and did not mind him returning to Leide with his uncle for some time, though when he is not around, the halls of the Citadel are empty, and the kitchens I avoided. The food tasted bland and flavorless. I craved his cooking.

 

When he returned I was overflowing with joy, and the sun shone in my pitifully small world again. With him there I could bear the imposing silence of the walls of the Citadel, could stop wondering why my father rarely visited me, even then in formal occassions or the rare evening when he would read me a bedtime story.

 

If he was there, I could bear anything. I could bear the crushing loneliness and solitude I was only just beginning to feel, I could bear the silent envy I would feel whenever I saw commoner children out in the streets walking with fathers who were present and mothers who were alive. I could bear it, as long as he was there. I could bear anything, with him.

 

And then, of course, the attack by the Marilith happened.


	2. And The Walls Closed In

I had gone to visit my mother’s royal tomb at the Myrlwood. It was the height of summer and I had just began additional education – further into elemancy, the power of kings, and had also began combat training under the famous Marshal of my father, Cor Leonis. He’d started me small, with wooden swords first, and I’d been stuffed with light Kevlar armor, a helmet, similar material for my arm guards. He taught me the forms first. High guard, side guard. The right way to angle my wrists, how you grip a sword. Training took place after school and ate away my precious nap time and coloring time with Iggy Ducky. We were suddenly forced to outgrow our crayons and doodles and colored pencils, and our afternoons were taken up with these additional classes – classes on subjects that could not be taught by the school, and that would aid us, it was said, later on in our lives.

 

I remember being intimidated by Cor Leonis. I had seen him before, countless times, a silent figure that stalked my father’s steps alongside Iggy Ducky’s uncle, Antoninus, alongside Titus Drautos, alongside the butler, Mr. Ridgefield. Silent, hands clasped behind him, katana sheathed by his hip, or strapped to his back. Cor would always greet me, a silent bow, or a quiet ‘Your Highness’. Sometimes he would carry me, and kiss my cheeks, and the burn of his tiny beard by the chin would make me laugh.

 

As I was saying – I had gone to visit my mother’s grave at the Myrlwood, and had deposited flowers – stargazers, her favorite, or so my father told me – and we had lingered a little, admiring the royal tombs and the stern likenesses of the effigies upon the sarcophagi there, and the maid that had accompanied me pointed out names and I repeated them.

 

I cannot now recall properly why Iggy Ducky wasn’t with me, but his absence – like all other of his absences – was sharply felt, and though the Myrlwood was beautiful and enchanting as the legends said, I could not appreciate its beauty – the tall height of her trees, the blooms of the flowers whose names I never bothered learning – without Iggy Ducky by my side. I wanted him near me, always.

 

We had been come upon by evening, and I was tired, leaning into my maid’s side. I remember her suggesting telling my father about my day, and I had told her my father the King would not be parted from his work, and that it would have been a pointless conversation.

 

And then fire consumed the earth, and I could hear tires screeching, and there was a monstrous roar, and I was outside, and there was pain, and blood soaking into my clothes.

 

I was dying, I knew, but my mind wouldn’t grasp it. Not yet. Consciousness faded slowly, starting by the edges. A hint of black, growing inward, ever inward, and the vision blurs. The pain is distant, and all sound is distant. Snatches of images – the Marilith in her hulking, snake-like form, advancing toward me. Strands of my maid’s hair against my face. Blood, thick upon the earth. And the crystalline shine of the royal arms – shooting in the dark.

I fell unconscious then, and when I awoke, my father informed me I was unconscious for a long while.

 

\--

 

I awoke, and it was daytime. The first things I saw were flowers – sunflowers – in a vase by the nightstand on my right, and there was a get-well card there, and I recognized the handwriting. I recognized the drawing – Iggy Ducky and me. I turned my head and was alarmed I couldn’t feel my lower half. I was seized by a panic – tried to wriggle my toes, but nothing. It was as if I had lost my lower half, and my heart rate spiked. A panicked cry left my lips, stilled only by the sensation of Iggy Ducky’s hand upon mine.

 

I turned my head and I see his face, still touched with childhood plumpness round the cheeks and chin, his fair hair falling into his bangs. His sea-green eyes holding my gaze, and his right hand by my cheek. My heart rate ebbed, and my panic subsided. I held his hand tightly and told him in a small, hoarse voice—I could not feel my legs.

 

It’s to be expected, Iggy Ducky had told me. You were quite injured, he said. It will be some time, but you will walk again. Now I must go tell the King you are awake.

 

I held onto his hand, prevented him from leaving. He looked at me, and in a beat, he knew. He embraced me, and I inhaled his perpetual pastry shop scent – honey and flour and strawberry and powdered sugar – and I felt nothing could harm me. He assured me I would be fine. I would be able to walk again. I would be fine.

 

I cried, and I was so easily brought to tears as a young boy. It frustrated me to no end. Whenever Iggy Ducky finished reading a book that had touched me, I cried. Whenever I got frustrated in my training with wooden blades, I cried. Whenever Cor Leonis hit me too hard, I cried. I was chastised for it. I cried easily. A royal was expected to keep his emotions in check, and I had to learn how. I could not keep breaking with every little stumble. This was the words of Iggy Ducky’s uncle, Sir Antoninus. Stop crying. You are the prince. Princes don’t cry.

 

But at that time, I cried. Nobody would stop me. I cried, and I tucked my nose under Iggy Ducky’s chin, and inhaled his sweet pastry shop scent, and though I was terrified I might not walk again, I felt safe. But yes. I still cried.

 

\--

 

My father would visit me only when I was lingering in a half-awake, half-asleep state, drugged for the pain that had wracked me since waking, down my spine, down my now incapacitated legs. Whenever I was fully conscious my hours were with Iggy Ducky, with my therapists. A strange thing, even then, that my father would not visit me when I was awake. He only came along during the last days of my confinement in the hospital, and he transferred me to my new wheelchair himself.

 

I remember looking at his face, touching my fingers upon his premature lines. He leaned into my touch, subtly, and before this – before my accident, I had never seen him look at me with such sadness. And it would be in sadness that he would look upon me for the years to come, and it hurt me, and I wanted to know why, but my father – ah, my father – he was never good with words, and I got that from him.

 

\--

 

I was shipped to Tenebrae after two months of unsuccessful therapy treatments at the Citadel. The Oracle, Queen Sylva, and her daughter, the next-in-line to the Trident, Princess Lunafreya, would heal me. I wanted Iggy Ducky with me, and I had initially refused to go anywhere near a floating rock of Tenebrae if I didn’t have him with me, but my father refused, saying Iggy Ducky had to mind his lessons, and could not afford delays in his own education when he was not injured.

 

Bound to my wheelchair my refusals were unheeded, and Iggy Ducky packed my clothes for me, in his methodical precision. Every pair of pants, neatly organized and folded. Every shirt, every pair of cargo shorts, every pair of socks. I still did not understand why he would not go with me. I wheeled over to him, hugged him to me, my arms tightly around him. I nuzzled his impeccable neck tie, his vest. Text me, I insisted. Text me and call me always. I want to hear what you’re cooking next. What you’ve done in your day. How your lessons went. I want to hear your voice.

 

Iggy Ducky promised. He promised videos, pictures, calls. He promised, and I was soothed. And yet when the time came for me to leave via airship, I kept my hands and my nose pressed against the glass of the airship window as we lifted off, and Iggy Ducky stood there beside his uncle and beside Sir Cor, and he kept waving until he was nothing more than a tiny, miniscule speck on the ground, and even when he vanished I imagined still I could see him waving, waving, waving.

 

\--

 

The distraction of Tenebrae came to me in the form of her floating islands and the grandeur of Fenestela Manor itself. Father had gone with me and introduced me formally to the Royal Family of Tenebrae – Queen Sylva, her eldest son Prince Ravus, his sister Princess Lunafreya. The Queen’s husband the King had perished in the same battle that had claimed Iggy Ducky’s father, but we all gave a moment’s silence in his memory before I was shown the rooms I would be staying in – I was apparently arranged to be accommodated in the Princess Lunafreya’s suites, so I may not lack companionship during my expected two-week stay here.

 

I was a shy boy, had always been – and the prospect of meeting so many new people was daunting to me. I was an only child, judiciously sheltered and kept, and until then I had only ever been close to Iggy Ducky. I was not even close to my own classmates, little snot-nosed noble children who would swarm me and follow me and snoop on whatever I was doing. I closed myself off to anybody except Iggy Ducky, and until then I was happy to stay that way.

 

The food was excellent, but I missed Iggy Ducky’s cooking – when dessert was served, the cake was bland, and I wanted his cakes. His sachertorte, his strudel, his tira misu, his sans rival – I missed him so suddenly, and I could choke on my longing. The Princess Lunafreya sensed my dipping mood, and talked to me, and held my hand – I recoiled, but I remembered my manners and apologized. My father nodded approvingly. She turned to me, this child of pale ethereality and cornflower blue eyes, and promised that, at least, she would not let me get lonely in my stay here.

 

\--

 

Princess Lunafreya made good her word. Our early mornings after breakfast was spent admiring their floating gardens, telling each other about our hobbies. She was quite the friendly girl, and loved telling me little anecdotes about her classmates from the exclusive, all-girl school she was attending. Sometimes, her quieter elder brother, Prince Ravus, would join us, and he would push my wheelchair as Lunafreya sat upon my lap, and we would shriek and weave flowers in each other’s hair. Sometimes Prince Ravus would carry me on his shoulders so I may reach this apple or that pear, or sometimes we would flee running from Lunafreya, who declared she was the Witch of Fenestela Manor, and if we could not outrun her, she would eat our hearts. And so Prince Ravus ran, and yelled and hung onto him tightly, and the sun shone so bright and the butterflies hopped from flower to flower, not a care in the world, Umbra and Pryna yipping and playfully biting at our heels.

 

\--

 

_“Tell me about the Princess Lunafreya and her brother Prince Ravus.”_

_“They’re wonderful, Iggy! You would like them! Today we climbed one of the floating gardens – the lowest one, and I was on Prince Ravus’ back all the while! The sylleblossoms are beautiful, and I asked for a bloom to be encased into resin to be given to you!”_

_“You need not to, Noct.”_

_“But I want to! I want to bring you home something…”_

_“Mm. I miss you.”_

_“I miss you too, Iggy Ducky. I miss you so much. I suppose Luna and Ravus aren’t so bad but, it’s different. They’re not you. I miss your cakes and the quiche and the pie, and—“_

_He laughs. I could almost see his laugh. Crinkling his eyes into slits._

_“You’re always missing my food!”_

_“There is a tart here – I cannot pronounce the name, but I’d want for you to make it for me, Iggy Ducky. Please?”_  
“Alright. Even if you do not have the name, try to get the ingredients. Okay?”  
“Okay.”

_“Goodnight my sweet prince.”_

_“Good night, Iggy Ducky. I miss you. I love you.”_

_“And I love you. Always.”_

 

\--

 

Perhaps the healing was an excuse. Perhaps this was the real reason my father sent me here – so I could be open to new friendships, meeting new people. I was, first and foremost, the prince, and I would inherit Lucis after him, and being King entailed that I had to be a person who loved people, and whom the people loved, as much as they were able.

 

During those days I grew to cherish Luna’s and Ravus’s companionship, their stories and their jokes, though like Iggy Ducky, they too, eventually left during the day – Luna to attend to her Oracular duties, and Ravus to his specialized lessons in statesmanship. Even that young I knew I disliked being left alone, and the long silences in Fenestela Manor, without Iggy Ducky’s texts or calls, without Luna’s bright, lilting voice, without Ravus’ contagious laughter – I felt once more this heavy, inexplicable feeling closing in around me, and I strove to get away from it.

 

It was during these restless, silent hours that Gentiana first approached me, when not even Umbra and Pryna’s companionship could soothe me. She presented me my own copy of the _Cosmogony_ then, and drew my attention to what would eventually be known to me as part of the _oracullum_ , these mystical illustrations of the gods and their messengers, depicting a prophecy told long ago about the Endless Night and the Chosen King who would end it.

 

I appreciated the lore surrounding all this, but Gentiana was hardly an ideal companion for a boy all alone in a foreign land, and though I was thankful for the book, I sorely wished that Luna and Ravus would come, or Iggy Ducky would text or call, and when one or the other happened I happily leapt to my escape, anything—to get away from the odd dark-haired woman who seemed to watch me with some mysterious knowledge known only to her.

 

\--

 

I healed, slowly but surely. I regained my mobility, but I still had to sit in my wheelchair and was instructed by Queen Sylva not to force myself, and that I should be able to walk and run as I did in a few more days. Still, my two weeks were ended, and my father and his entourage had come to pick me up. We were by Fenestela Manor’s grandest garden reception area, and Luna pushed my wheelchair forward, and my eyes were intent on my father, and the people that stood behind him. Sir Antoninus, Sir Cor, Mr. Ridgefield—but nowhere could I find Iggy Ducky. I searched, I craned my neck, and nothing. The disappointment was sharp in my gut, and I clutched the resin-encased sylleblossom in my hands.

 

My father walked forward for me, and then, for the second time in my life, the world exploded into flames.

 

My wheelchair was knocked down. My father scooped me up. Screams from all sides, and gunfire. It was my first time to see MT Units in action, and I will never forget the jerking, almost-spiderlike movements of their limbs. I will never forget how they burned Queen Sylva alive. How Luna’s hand slipped from my father’s.

 

And in that chaos, my gift to Iggy Ducky had slipped past my fingers, and I could remember clearly how it fell to the earth, to be crushed underfoot by General Glauca.

 

\--

 

I cannot recall the airship journey home. Sir Antoninus often said it was probably the fastest airship flight in history, with the way the pilots cranked up the speed to get us out of Tenebrae air space. My father had ensconced me in the arms of maids and we were hidden in one of the escape pods, with two of the Crownsguard – Monica’s elder sister, Wilhelmina, and a tall man I never knew the name of – in the pod with us, on high alert, their ear pieces constantly buzzing static and status reports. We were being chased by Aerial Destroyers-- a Diamond Weapon in flight. The red alarm light threw the world in an odd specter of shadows and fearful faces. I burrowed into the warm hold of the maids who put me between their bodies.

 

\--

 

We re-entered Lucian airspace and were safe. The airship docked, and I was quickly fetched by my father, who held me to him as we hastened through the airport. Already reports of Tenebrae’s fall were being shown on the massive LED televisions around the building. My father did not look at them, carried me, and he would have flown away from there with his hurry. We reached the Citadel in no time, and in the car ride that led us there, I was brimming with questions, but the look on my father’s face killed them before I could voice them.

 

My only consolation was, Iggy Ducky was by the steps of the Citadel, waiting for me. I was home. I was home. I ducked to avoid my father’s arms as he tried to put me onto my wheelchair. I took my steps – I walked – oh, how I wanted to run – I walked up the stairs, threw myself into Iggy Ducky’s hold. At once that pastry shop scent filled my nose. I held him tightly. He held me as if letting go would kill him. I could feel him nosing into my hair, could almost hear his glasses slipping down his nose.

 

“I’m sorry,” I heard myself say. “I lost your present.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Iggy Ducky whispered. “You’re home.”

 

\--

 

That unseen wall – that feeling of something big brewing in the horizon though I saw it not, knew it not, understood it not – began pressing around all of us from that day. I knew it started when Queen Sylva died, when Tenebrae fell, when Luna got behind, when my sylleblossom encased in resin got left behind and got crushed. A pall had come over everything – Lucis, most of all, and over my father. Change too, started creeping up all around my small, limited life. I was pulled out from the exclusive school and transferred into a public institution, a first time for any Lucian Royal child to be so. Iggy Ducky was not to be transferred with me, and if for this alone I refused and resisted the transfer altogether, but my father was King, and I was not even formally conferred as the Crown Prince, and children cannot sway the minds and hearts of adults, once they are dead set in things they think they must do.

 

I sulked. I resisted. I rebelled, or so I called my little fits rebellion at that time. I spent the night in Iggy Ducky’s small room, curled up by his side, an arm around his middle. I dreaded the resumption of school. This was the first time I would be without him for most of my morning hours. I could not imagine it. I would not tolerate it. I hated it.

 

His fingers dug and caressed my hair, and without fail the gesture made me sleepy. I felt my eyelids drooping. I could still feel the teardrops clinging to them. My face hurt. My eyes hurt.

 

“But what would I do without you?” I asked sleepily, my exhaustion in my voice.  
“As you must, my prince. As you must. Even without me, as you must.”

 

\--

 

My new school had no use for the beautiful, impeccable uniforms of my old. Children here were allowed to wear what they wanted provided they remained in the bounds of decency and the school mandated Dress Code, which prescribed short and skirt lengths for girls, haircut measures and short lengths for boys. I was to be eternally clad in black – the color of the Lucis Caelum since time immemorial.

 

My father did not take me to school. It was only Sir Cor, and Sir Antoninus with me. I looked, daunted, at the groups of children playing and calling to each other – boys throwing basketballs into the air and catching them again, gaggles of girls giggling over stories of what they did over the summer break. Teachers hollering names off their lists, and some cool voice wafting over with garbled words over the barely audible comm system.

 

My steps were heavy, and leaden. I hesitated, and looked over my shoulder. Sir Antoninus was impassive and his face could have been carved from stone. It was Sir Cor who gave me the thing I needed; an encouraging nod, however small.

 

I took a deep breath and shifted my backpack, and dove into the sea of children. The first step I took was all I need – all eyes were henceforth on me, and all chatter, conversation and games, halted. It was a terrible feeling, the feeling of being watched. My hackles rose. My gut twisted. My steps were unsure, and I felt sick to my stomach. My hand itched to reach for Iggy Ducky’s, but he was nowhere near me – he was across the city, all the way in the Third Quadrant of Insomnia, miles away – a world away from me, and I cannot reach him. I wanted to turn tail and return home and beg my father to return me to my old school, where Iggy Ducky was. I would do anything to be back there.

 

I made it into the campus without incident. A bevy of teachers and the school principal were waiting for me. They would guide me, they said, and the school’s staff and all of its facilities were at my disposal. I was the first prince – to have graced their institution.

 

\--

 

My teachers welcomed me warmly enough, but my class was another story entirely. I usually sat in the front row, where I could see the black board and give all my attention to my teachers and lessons, but here, there was no place reserved for me. The only vacant seat was the one at the very back of the classroom, nearest the shoe lockers and the windows. And so I went there without talking – the teacher assigned to us was not yet present, undoubtedly being oriented as to my presence.

 

I put my bag and my lunch box on my desk, and my mind was reeling with thought and anxiety about this transfer that I couldn’t – I’d failed to notice someone had left a bag of water on my chair. I pulled up my chair without thinking, and sat down – and the bag burst beneath me, wetting my shorts, all the way through my underwear. Water soaked into my socks, my shoes.

 

I gasped. I stood, knocked my lunch box off of my desk.

 

“He peed on his pants!” Someone yelled, and the laughter that came afterward rose up against me, like my unseen wall, and everywhere I looked the other kids were laughing, freckled cheeks stretched, lips curled and opened, teeth flashing. Some kid was sitting on his desk laughing so hard he clutched his stomach.

 

I stood there, frozen. I was transfixed, shocked, my mind could not wrap around the fact that someone had dared to do this to me, someone, one of these children, and _did they not know that I was the prince_?

 

Our teacher – a middle-aged woman with brown hair, square-glasses – entered the room, and she immediately zoned in on me, standing there frozen, ashen-paced, dripping water down my legs and onto the floor.

 

“Your Highness!” She calls, and she rushes forward, her lesson plans abandoned on the table, and she had me, and she led me out of the room, and the laughter of the children echoed dully in my skull.

 

\--

 

I asked to go home, and the principal let me go without fuss, but had given me a thousand apologies and there was fear in his eyes and the way he wrung his hands. He and my adviser assured the culprit would be found, and their parents informed about their behavior. No, _the entire class’s parents would be informed about their behavior_. Sir Cor fetched me in the Regalia, and he didn’t ask questions as to my drenched bottoms. I sat in the passenger’s seat and was silent the rest of the way home.

 

I gave a start though, when I briefly felt Sir Cor’s hand on mine, and gave me an assuring squeeze. He didn’t say anything else, but to me, that was enough.

 

\--

 

As I was wont to do, I looked for Iggy Ducky. I got into a dry pair of shorts, left my untouched school bag and lunch on my desk, and went out to look for him. Ignis sometimes went home to the Citadel for lunch. True enough, our favorite chef – the one who always let us raid the kitchens – directed me to one of the smaller, more private receiving areas of the Citadel. He told me Iggy Ducky was pulled out of school early for an important introduction.

 

Curious, I pumped effort down my legs and ran, intent on this introduction. Who was it? Who could be so important to be introduced to Iggy Ducky that he had to be pulled out of school? Was I supposed to be pulled out as well, had not my unfortunate welcome intervened?

 

I knew my way around the halls and corridors. I found the right room simply because the double doors were left slightly ajar. I heard voices. I pushed open the door and found Sir Clarus Amicitia there, alongside Sir Antoninus Scientia, and—and my father. My father, who could not be bothered to take me to school, was here for an important introduction I did not even know of.

 

I could see the back of Iggy Ducky’s head. And the back of the head of a taller boy, whose dark hair was in a crew cut. Even with his back turned to me, I could see the uniform and shoulder decorations of Insomnia’s greatest military academy.

 

“Who are you?” I demanded, and the adults looked surprised and Iggy Ducky turned and the boy with the crew cut turned too, and in his face and eyes I could see Sir Clarus Amicitia, and his wife, Lady Peony Amicitia.

 

The boy stood, and I almost took a step back. He was huge and wide, almost like a solid block of granite. He stood in full attention and looked at me, and I looked at him. Beside me Iggy Ducky stood, and had a hand on the small of my back.

 

“Noctis, my prince,” Iggy Ducky said. There was something in his tone I didn’t like. “This is your sworn Shield. I am honored that I am the one to introduce you two.”

 

“Your Highness,” says the impossibly tall boy. “Gladiolus Amicitia, at your service, unto death.”

 

I turned my head. I watched Iggy Ducky’s face. He was looking at this new boy with all the admiration in the world, and I hated it. As a child and as a young man, I ‘hated’ many things. It’s funny now, really. Sometimes I still give myself a good laugh whenever I remember.

 

I turned to the boy, indignant. “You’re not needed,” I said, without thinking, my ugly morning weighing me down, and so was Iggy Ducky’s looking at the boy. “You’re not needed – Ignis is enough for me.” I turned to the adults. “I don’t need him,” I declare. “Ignis is enough. Send him away.”

 

But of course there’s no sending Gladiolus away. For like the Scientia, the Amicitia were bound to the Lucis Caelum, rightly, unto death.

 

That was also the first time I unconsciously dropped Ignis’ nickname.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned this work to be of four parts, but apparently, my Noctis muse is planning otherwise. Maximum can say is 5 to 6 parts, at most.  
> Feedback is always welcome and appreciated!


	3. And The Walls Rose Higher Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major NSFW ahead. Substance abuse, dub-con.

There were about three hundred and forty-six rooms in the Citadel, but there was one I absolutely disliked. We call it the _oracullum_ , and it’s one of the smallest rooms in the Citadel, but one that holds the most meaning. The walls and ceilings are covered in ancient paintings – what artist made them, or how long it took – nobody now knows, but the frescoes are kept vibrant with some preservation spell, and even the minutest expression upon the tiniest rendition of a messenger of the god could be appreciated by anyone, and they did not need to squint.

 

The _oracullum_ ’s images were rendered upon old rock, part of the wall of the Old Citadel, and when the palace was razed by a civil war two thousand years ago, the walls of the _oracullum_ were lifted, and now fitted, into the new Citadel. There were no windows there. There was one, black wood tripod that stood in the middle of the room, and on it was a vase, marble white with seams of gold. The flowers the maids put there varied with the seasons. The first time my father took me to the _oracullum_ , that vase held pink roses, the blooms large and beautiful, almost like saucers. I could remember admiring them.

 

“Noctis, come here.”

 

My father would tell me that the _oracullum_ depicted the most important prophecy of our time – the Endless Darkness, and the Chosen King, and his duty to vanquish the Darkness, so light may return to the lands. He would stand before one segment of the paintings there, an image of the gods raining down crystalline swords that uncannily resemble the Armiger, toward daemons. Hooded figures abound that image, and the daemons were depicted to be writhing in agony as the light destroyed them.

 

I didn’t want to focus on the _oracullum_ the first time my father brought me there. My thoughts were on the newest addition to my household – this Gladiolus Amicitia, and about how suddenly, my world seemed to have shrunk two times over. I was familiar with the tradition of having my Shield. My father had Sir Clarus. Of course I was expected to have one of my own. But until then, Ignis was my world. Ignis was my everything, and as long as I had Ignis, my world was complete. The third addition to us was unnecessary, and I immediately disliked the easy camaraderie that had formed between them. I disliked it to the utmost.

 

“Noctis, are you listening?”

 

My father’s reproachful tone snapped me out of my brooding (brooding! At the age of eight, nine? I was impossible.) and I roused myself, met his gaze. It seemed to me that before the Marilith, before Tenebrae fell, before everything else, my father’s hair had been dark. Now he was graying, and graying fast. There were more lines etched upon his face than I could remember.

 

I had no answer, and my father sighs, and lowers himself onto one knee. I blinked rapidly at him, one, two, three.

 

“Recite the _Nadir_ verses for me,” he says, peering into my young face.

 

I stood silent for a long while, and my father sighed again. He stood up, and turned again to that particular painting. Back then I thought I had imagined it, but pain was etched on his face. Pain and inexplicable sadness.

 

“Noctis. This prophecy is important. You have to know every corner of it, every verse, every hidden meaning. When you are King…”

 

“I’m not King. You’re King,” I say.

 

“I am King _now_ ,” my father says. “But one day…you will be King after me. It is important for you to understand this prophecy.”

 

“Why?”

 

It was his turn to not be able to answer. He turned to me, looked at me with such sadness that I took a step back from him. I waited, I waited, and I waited for his answer, but none came. I could see the struggle on his prematurely aging face. I could almost hear it in his heart. But he gave me no answer, and we eventually left the _oracullum_ with my lone question hanging in the air.

 

\--

 

There were many trips to the _oracullum_ after that. In fact, those trips were my only real chances to see my father unhampered, and he spent it with me in that room, and there were so many things I wished we would do. Play soccer, for instance. He got me a soccer ball with the promise of a game, but that game never came to pass. Eventually, when I discovered my passion for fishing, he gave me a fishing rod as well, but the promised trip to watch and help me fish also never came to pass. The chances and times I saw my father began to dwindle after Tenebrae fell, and somehow I knew they were connected, but I was not taught enough politics to do my own snooping and my own research.

 

My knowledge on politics and war came too late, but Ignis would tell me I was a natural. I was told that I was more of sharpened blades than my father ever was, but then, my father only fought a two-way battle, not three, or four. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

 

I grew to hate the _oracullum_ with a passion, because every time my father visited me, he would take me there. We would stand there for hours, always before the same segment of the paintings, and he would look at it, absorbed, as if I had ceased to exist beside him. At first, I would ask him why, but he never seemed able to explain himself. Eventually, I stopped asking, my temper short and my silence thick with disappointment, and he would sigh and we would leave that stuffy room that suffocated my father and me both with an unseen grip.

 

He would slip away from me then, called by his duties, called by the consequences of the fall of Tenebrae into imperial hands, and I would be left alone, with nobody but Ignis and Gladiolus, and the maids and the butler.

 

I would never be able to see my father hence, without coursing my desire through his appointments manager, or until he calls for me. That wounded me deeply. I never quite recovered from it.

 

\--

 

School became a tiny bit better. The principal had made good upon his word, and I reported no further bullying incident, but I became withdrawn from my classmates. I observed and listened their day-to-day chatter, fascinated and enthralled with the comings and goings of their common lives. How one kid would borrow a bit of gil from his closest friend for extra lunch money, and then pay it on Friday, or perhaps next week. The little trends on pastel highlighters and the newest color of post-its. The new game in the arcade.

 

My classmates observed me back with ill-concealed fascination. Sometimes, someone would gather courage to speak for the whole class, twist in her seat, and ask me if I had a butler. I said yes. If I had a maid. I said yes. How big was my room. About this big. Is it true you have all the game consoles there is? No, because I didn’t have the very first Game Boy. What about the jeweled eggs given to you every year? Yes. I have eleven.

 

I made no effort to unfurl myself to them. When the class went on breaks I either looked out of the window, watch Insomnia’s streets and the cars, eating my Tenebraian tart that Ignis has actually perfected after the tenth attempt. I never told him, because then he would stick to one recipe only. I preferred his tarts, eventually. Every tart was unique and varied from the last, with surprise fillings. Orange slices today, kiwi tomorrow, perhaps dragon fruit on Wednesday.

 

Group work was a challenge and grated on my nerves. Everybody wanted to pair up with me, and I was expected to be the group leader every time. It was in the way the other kids arched their brows and waited on my instructions, like dogs. I suppose the good thing here is, my group mates always made an effort. Contrary, I never had to do too much myself.

 

\--

 

I took up the cello, and Ignis took up the piano. Gladiolus took up the flute. After school my days were busy – advanced, supplemental lessons – drills on elemancy and traditional arms, and then firearms. At the end of it all, me, Ignis and Gladio would be in the music room, our tutor making us create melody upon melody, my cello strings to Ignis’ piano keys to Gladio’s flute notes. A three-man orchestra, Sir Antoninus once complimented us. It was a part of royal grace and etiquette - noble children had to learn music, dance and art – alongside everything else.

 

\--

 

The dances were what I loved best. Practicing the waltz, our instructor counting the beats by tapping his shoe upon the marble floor. Ignis would hold me close, my left hand by his waist, my right hand holding his left. We traced graceful arcs and circles as our instructor watched, softly calling out improvements, reminders – a subtle glide here, guide Ignis to dip here, swoop low, pull back, and dance. And slide. And glide. And twirl.

 

We would exchange positions, and steps. For beginnings I would dance the steps of the gentleman, and Ignis would humor me with the lady’s. We switch, and now I drop into a curtsy despite my lack of skirts, and Ignis would laugh, and take me up, gently, always with care, as if I were rightly made of porcelain. Glide, slide, swoop, pull back, slide, glide, and twirl.

 

His sea green eyes watched me behind his glasses, and I watched him back. Always smiling, always praising me, always quick to offer consolation whenever I made a mistake, and then tell me where I went wrong, then gently remind me again if I’m committing the same mistake, over and over.

 

My hand somehow slipping down his arm, or down his side. My entire world in a nutshell, dancing with me, watching me behind his glasses. I almost ask him why he keeps his hair flat, but then I love the way his bangs fall over his eyes, messily, but still with enough grace somehow in the individual downward curves of fair hair. Almost prickling his eyelashes.

 

We would bow to each other, and the dance ends. I would take his hand, and we would both of us thereafter run to the kitchens, and he would put on his apron and borrow a box or a stool, and he would cook and I would eagerly await where I sat by the kitchen island, my stomach already growling in anticipation of whatever he deemed fit to feed me.

 

And I would eat anything he would feed me, perhaps give a bit of a fight over the vegetables, but he never pushed me further, and a little more of his wheedling and I’d have eaten lettuce and tomatoes and carrots. He never pushes me too far. Never coerces me too hard. But even if his foods were poisoned, I still would have eaten it all, to the last grain, to the last morsel, to the last drop – and I’d have perished with a smile on my face.

 

\--

 

Storms, whenever they broke over Insomnia, were fierce and loud. The Fulgurian strikes the sky with lightning bolts, and the world crashes and weeps in a downpour. I was afraid of lightning once, like most children. I would wake up alone in my room, and I would bundle myself up in my blanket, and drag a pillow off of my four-poster bed.

 

In the darkness of the Citadel I would navigate easily, my bare feet padding almost noiselessly on carpet and marble. I would find Ignis’ room four floors down, and I would slip in noiselessly, and there in the dark he shuffles, and his lamp flares to life.

 

His hair is tousled and he’s rubbing his eyes, and his glasses are neatly folded but abandoned on his nightstand.

 

I would climb into his bed and he would inch closer to the wall and pat the space beside him, and happily I would smoosh myself into his chest, and tuck my nose under his chin.

 

I would inhale his pastry shop scent, and wrap my arms and legs around him. He would nose against my cheeks, my forehead.

 

“Good night, sweet prince.”  
“Good night, Ignis. I love you.”  
“I love you.”

 

The lamp’s light would be extinguished, and we would both be plunged into the dark, but the great Ramuh can crash and thunder all he wanted, but I was safe, and my dreams were harmless.

 

\--

 

I wish I could say Ignis was enough. Or Prompto. Or even Gladio, with his prickly attitude toward me. Or even his sister Iris. But they weren’t enough, and they could only distract me for so long against my father’s glaring absence, could only distract me for so long against the gaping maw inside my chest. I grew restless, when people left me alone. Ignis had more duties now – and he had been asked to attend council. I was baffled I was not extended any such invitation. Gladio never really talks to me outside official duties, skirting a boundary still between us. I made no effort to cross that boundary myself. Prompto’s company was vibrant, and he would cheer me near effortlessly when I needed it, but my sadness was different once I returned to the Citadel. It was different. It was the kind only those closest to me could understand.

 

There was some great emptiness in me, and it only kept growing every day. I wanted my father but he was always too busy for anything except those damned, silent visits to the _oracullum_. He would look upon that same painting, over and over, and then he would look at me and _he is just so sad_ , and I stood there hoping desperately for any explanation, but it never came. I had not repeated my lone question of ‘why’, already sure of what his answer was going to be.

 

I wanted my father. I needed him.   
Needed him so desperately, something more than just brief calls, brief texts, granted appointments where he would sit me down, look at me, and ask me nothing except did I eat well, or did my studies go well, did I have a new hobby.

 

I wanted him to go outside with me, where I could show him how big of fishes I could catch. Introduce him to Prompto maybe, drag him around at the arcade.

 

I wanted and needed so many things but all I got were the damned trips to the _oracullum_ , and his unexplained sadness whenever he looked at me, and somehow, somehow a terrible idea wormed its way into my head, which would never be quite dislodged.

 

I was both his joy, and yet I was the greater cause of his sorrow.  
And I never knew why, until it was too late, and I had no other choices to make.

 

\--

 

The Great Downward Spiral of My Life, Part One – that was what I liked to call it. Ignis had a simpler, more concise term – the time you drifted from me. We both called it different things, but, to use a very famous phrase – shit hit the fan when I turned sixteen, when I broached the Age of Majority, and I was formally Conferred and Introduced to the Lucian Court as _His Royal Highness, Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, Crown Prince of Lucis and Duke of Lestallum_.

 

It’s a long-ass name, and I have ten other titles I believe, but I never can be bothered to recall them. Even now, as King, I have thirty other titles to my name, but I never like recalling them. One, _King of Dawn_ , is enough, and that outweighs everything else on my plate and on any sheet of paper.

 

Sixteen. A grand ball was held in my honor, and all the noble families of Lucis had come to the Citadel. It was first and foremost a ball of two callings – a highly ritualized, stylized and formal first half, and the less formal second half, where I could ask the DJ to play the dance remix Ignis made with my input and the playlist Prompto whipped up for such an occasion.

 

The opening ceremonies required me to stand with my father as I was introduced to all the noble families – to the Patriarch or Matriarch, and one or two of their foremost children. I was clad impeccably, in a suit specially tailored for the occasion, fabric and stitching handpicked by Ignis. I could see him just by my periph, standing with Gladio, and I wanted nothing else but for this inane posturing to stop, so I could ask him for my First Dance.

 

It was custom to ask a Lady, of course, but I had no engagement and no marriage plans at this age. I could ask whomever I wanted, and I was bored, and a little jolt through the court would serve me well, believed, and so I had decided Ignis was going to be my First Dance, and everybody else could – literally – _fuck off_.

 

I was dead set on this – until my father introduced me to the Archduke of Solheim, my Uncle Theopilus, and his eldest son, Maximilian, and his twin sister, Lucille.

 

Lucille, Lucille. Such a pretty face – iron gray eyes, porcelain doll, rich strawberry blonde curls. And Maximilian, just a tad darker – copper hair, the blue eyes of our family, a fine jaw. They were both of them six years older than me at that point, and I have never seen any two people carry themselves with the sureness these duo did. I had only seen that silent, sleek grace once – not on my father, but on Cor Leonis.

 

I don’t remember exactly what Lucille talked to me about. But all other ideas fled my mind then, and I graced her with my First Dance, and the next one after that, and the next, and the next. Five Dances I was supposed to grace a different member of the court, but Lucille easily had my attention. It wasn’t just her face, no. The way she moved, the way her laugh tinkled like bright champagne, the way she…

 

Hooked, line and sinker – that was me, and I didn’t even know what it was exactly that did me in. I was feverish. I wanted to keep talking to her and her brother Maximilian, Max – I wanted to talk to them so much, about their lives, their country, their hobbies – I ended up joining their dinner table, smiling abashed under my Uncle Theopilus’ scrutiny.

 

Dinner ends with the promise to visit Solheim, a chance for me to escape the suffocating walls of the Citadel – _two weeks_ without that damned visit to the _oracullum_.  I would take that chance. I would take it.

 

The presentation of my sword – Aqesiro – drew me briefly away from my enchanting relations, but I was quick to return to them, moth drawn to the fire. I would go unchaperoned – I did not need any guardian now, and I did not want Gladiolus breathing down my neck – after all, what danger could mine own relations pose to me? I was glad for the chance to be able to leave Insomnia – see the world apart from Tenebrae, where I was kept in the manor and the gardens only. I hungered for the world. All the vast expanse of it, and all its possibilities.

 

The evening wore on and ended, and I felt a giddy bubbling warmth in the pit of my stomach as I kissed Lucille’s knuckles to bid her good night. Max would give me his most brilliant smile and clap my shoulder, and my Uncle promised a vehicle would fetch me from Insomnia to Solheim. I was thrilled and excited, and I was unable to sleep that night.

 

\--

 

If my father expressed concern over my sudden summer trip, I was impatient to hear it—I did not want to hear it. Still, I was to be under his first cousin’s care and custody, and eventually he gave his approval. Many years later Ignis would tell me it was a grudging approval. And I suppose even then my father had had an inkling that sending me to Solheim was one of the worst decisions he had made.

 

The vehicle bearing the flag of Solheim arrived two days later. I bundled up my belongings – clothes, a few books of interest, my most portable of games, and I went – without Ignis, without Gladiolus, without any escort. The trip took us roughly an hour to the airship port, and there the airship of my Uncle Theopilus awaited, and I spent the take-off admiring how fast Insomnia shrank beneath me, with its walls and its streets and towering skyscrapers.

 

The flight took two hours and a half, and the Duchy of Solheim was in reach – the structures here were different, of lighter colors, their cobblestone streets wide. The Duchy had no walls to keep enemies out, but my cousins assured they had enough protection. They are not the same Empire of Solheim from the legends, no, they merely took on the name – but already I could feel the vast difference from Insomnia – the city beneath the airship was not so choked with tall buildings and traffic, no too many neon signs and billboards, not too many cars.

 

It seemed to me that I was going on a summer vacation of epic proportions.

 

\--

 

It was a vacation for the first week. The spectacles and delights of Solheim distracted me – and I was keen for any distraction. My formal Conferment as the Crown Prince shrank further my already tiny world, and the ceremony did not chase away the fact that I was excluded from council, I was learning the barest minimal on statecraft, I was taken almost weekly now to that damned _oracullum_ for some reason I could not and did not have the patience to comprehend. I learned of their culture here – their delight on stepping on berries harvested for wine – marvel at their long pipes which was fueled by some hallucinogenic tobacco – marvel even further at the tang and zest of their spiced wine, which carried about five different hints of citrus and best served shaken over ice.

 

I delighted down the cobblestone streets, marveling at the shops, dancing along to the hymn and rhythms of the street musicians that played upon zither and tambourine and harmonica – a strange new medley of scents and sights and sounds.

 

I felt happy, in some measure. Happy and free, and I was in another place, and home was far and behind, alongside its choking presence.

 

\--

 

It was nighttime of my fourth day in Solheim, and Lucille came to my rooms, startling me awake. Her hair was unbound in pearls and ropes of gold, and there was a bright glint in her eyes that made me both wary and excited. She sat upon the edge of my bed and offered me colored pills. They were harmless, she said. Used alongside their long pipe, and they would help me relax. I picked up one, a pink one, and held it up in the faint light of my nightstand. I remember asking how it would help me relax. She laughed her glittering laugh and told me it would make me lose inhibitions for a while, just ease up, go limp as a boneless cat. I had to melt the thing under my tongue.

 

A great flaw of my youth – my easy manipulation. Too trusting, too innocent, too sheltered from the ugliness of the world, even for royal standards.

 

I took the pill, tucked it under my tongue, and as the thing dissolved and I swallowed its thickly sweet fizz, my brain melted from inside my skull, and my awareness became distorted into this hazy wonderland of echoing voices and hypersensitive touch.

 

I didn’t know when Max joined us, but they led me from my rooms, half-dumb, half-numb, a total half-wit, led me to some basement in their ducal palace, and there other noble children my age and up were dancing to garishly loud yet obnoxiously muffled music – and lights were flaring overhead in colors that impossibly existed in another spectrum.

 

Drinks were thrust into my hands, and I consumed them obediently, one after the other, burning down my throat. It seemed to make the pill worse – the world wobbled and I understood jack, and somehow I was dancing and swaying and Lucille took my hands and she’s swaying so close, and she smells so sweet – nothing else could smell so sweet, nothing, not even the field of sylleblossoms back in Tenebrae, their blooms dancing in the breeze.

 

And then Max was behind me and grinding tantalizingly close against me and his breath was molten hot, hot, hot against my neck.

 

Lucille kissed me, and a supernova erupted in my mouth and nose and throat. After that was just a hazy recollection of Lucille on top of me, riding me, her head tipped back and she’s offering me the pearl of her throat. My hands enclosed in a vice grip upon her rounded breasts, and her pert nipples almost pricking my hands, like the business ends of nails. She was wet and hot between the legs and I thrust into her and her mouth opened and I couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

 

Max came next, and his kisses burned where Lucille’s exploded, and his body was solid and rough and at the same time soft by the edges, and he entered me and it hurt, it hurt, I almost passed out, I was sure, from the sheer hurt, and yet he worked me and I lost control of my body and he’s inside, opening me and reaching places I didn’t want reached – but my mind was lost, too lost, and the drug heightened everything and the pain gave way to molten fire licking under my skin and Max worked me until he can’t anymore and I can’t and he filled me and Lucille was laughing somewhere and I could smell her and Max and there was nothing remotely sweet about all this now.

 

My lips were bruised with kisses and my legs felt like river clay, and Lucille bent over my face and kissed me and I kissed her back, and Max trailed his hands over my body, and I chased Lucille’s lips and I chased and I chased and I chased.

 

\--

 

If I thought the pills gave me an out-of-the world trip, Lucille and Max were quick to teach me combinations that worked even better. The long pipe, after some puffs, combined with half a pill melting under my tongue, and the world isn’t hazy but overbright, burning my eyes and making my heart pound right in my throat. Like this nothing can hurt me, and I feared nothing, and the emptiness and choking feeling back home was forgotten in a swirl of pills, pipes and white crystalline powder we snorted up our pretty noses.

 

The music thrummed right through me as if I’d swallowed speakers, and I danced like I’ve never danced before, and hands reached for me and lips kissed me and my clothes were torn and it was all a swirling mess of drinking, smoking, fucking, Lucille reaching for me and guiding me in her depths and Max pounding right into my own depths.

 

\--

 

My days in Insomnia after that were dull. The company bland and the food blander still, and I wanted to return to Solheim every weekend if I could, pop a pill or smoke on the long pipe and dance away into the sunset. If I was in Solheim, I could forget how quiet the Citadel was, forget the glaring absence of my father, forget all the time I wished he spent with me, forget all my burning questions, forget the indignation of having to beg for my own father’s time via appointments and scribbled time slots on schedule books and log books. If I was in Solheim I could forget about Prompto’s annoying chatter, the obligation of answering Luna’s notebook, Gladio’s nagging, Ignis—

 

I was shortly ordered to be packed and shipped to my own condominium unit at the twenty-ninth floor of Caelum Via Towers, as apparently, being Conferred and being legal meant I had to learn how to fend for myself. My unit was a vast three-hundred square meter place with a spectacular view of Insomnia, fully-furnished. Ignis was going to check on me every weekend, and I had to learn how to cook, to clean up after myself.

 

I didn’t need it. I didn’t _fucking_ need it – all those, Ignis had already secretly taught me – allowing me to help him cook, showing me how to mend buttons and letting me try my hand – teaching me how to read an instruction manual first before I tackled any new appliance I have not used before – teaching me how to use the internet to search for good know-how videos on cooking, starting with simpler recipes.

 

I could already do those things, if I put my mind and my ass to it. I could. But I didn’t, and all I wanted to be was to be back in Solheim, forgetting, filling the void in my head and in my chest with pills and drink and Lucille’s lips and Max’s body.

 

If I was in Insomnia, I felt like the dead. The kind of dead that did not matter.   
In Solheim, at least, though I was spiraling to my own destruction, I was alive, and I mattered.

 

\--

 

It was an afternoon and I’d skipped training with Gladio and lost Prompto at the arcade and I arrived at my condo and Ignis was waiting, and holding the bottle of the pills Lucille had secretly sent in a box of potpourri jars that were supposedly gifts for me. Ignis had never looked at me like that before, but he looked so disappointed at me, that I almost flung myself at his knees and kissed his feet and vowed to never drug myself again.

 

But I was sixteen, and I felt worthless and left in the dark, and therefore I was angry at the world, and I was angry at him, for some offense he did not even do.

 

He asked me what it was, and what it did to me.

 

“Turns me as limp as a boneless cat,” was my answer.

 

And to my great horror Ignis opens the bottle and tucks a pill under his tongue, and I make a desperate grab and I the pill bottle drops to the floor, spilling its rainbow contents. I too, tuck a pill under my tongue, and there it is – my escape, my fire exit, my open door to the thirty thousand foot drop to the earth below, wind roaring in my ears.

 

In this narrowed haze and muffled sounds and the wild thrumming of my heart I reach for Ignis and he turns to me, turns to me like he’s starving and dying if I didn’t touch him. He kissed me and I kissed him, and this was unlike the burning kisses I was so used to by now; it was warmth – slow and thick in its spread, reaching all the way to my fingertips, my toes, the ends of my hair.

 

_Ignis_ , I moan his name, and that, and that alone, topples him into oblivion.

 

He claims me. Claims me as if he’s angry at me, angry at Max and Lucille for daring to soil me. He thrusts into me as if he’s determined to purge the filth in my veins, erase Max and Lucille from existence that way, taint my skin with his scent instead, bruise me with his kisses and fill me with himself. He possesses me like the Infernian out to burn the world in a rabid craze, and my scream I muffle into the pillows as he finishes between my legs, riding out our pleasure, his nails gouging trenches on my thighs.

 

When the high ebbs he looks at me defeated, and he pulls me to him, and he begs – begs me not to abandon him like this again, that if I would burn myself up like the star I was, he would gladly follow. He would burn too, and if I died, he will die.

 

Ignis never begged before.  
Perhaps I had it wrong from the start. I was never the one doing the following here. He was.

 

 


	4. And It Breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nsfw ahead.

At eighteen I had spiraled further downward into this oblivion of substance and obnoxiously loud music. My days were nothing to me if I didn’t spend them at Solheim, with Lucille and Max and the parties and the drugs, and my attention slipped further away from school – I began to flunk. People had always said I was an intelligent boy, learned fast if I wanted to – but always, especially at that time, I never found any impetus to push myself forward. I had found myself in limbo and did not want to get out of it, I was in the dark, with that ever-nagging sensation of something great and unknown looming over me, but I didn’t know what it was, and nobody would tell me.

 

And so I was this…this ghost floating at a crossroads, not knowing whence to go from there – left, right, or middle – it didn’t matter and I didn’t want to leave my place of entrapment. I was anchored there further with my resentment at my own station in life – trappings of royalty that had bored me right off my own skull; my father and his very poignant absence – the day to day where decisions were made for me and not by me, and I didn’t lack for anything. Reach, and I could acquire.

 

People would tell me I am lucky and privileged. Others are worse than I am – the refugees from Galahd constantly streaming now into Insomnia’s walls, packing the immigrants’ quadrant full to bursting, the tenements built thereat housing more and more beyond their capacity. I had a home, and constant food, constant clothing, constant flow of money and an unlimited credit card. I was the prince, and well-loved, and looked-after.

 

I repeat the words in my head.  
_Well-loved. Looked-after_.

Ha.

 

\--

 

Ignis sank into this new, secret lifestyle of ours with the ease of one weighed down with a rock. When summer break came two years ago, I was quick to take him with me to Solheim, and my father, perhaps assured by Ignis’ company, let us go without further fuss and turned his eyes and attention away to whatever official matter that had always taken up his hours and days and consumed his health faster than even the most virulent species of termite unleashed upon a forest of Cleigne hardwood.

 

He hounded my every step – followed me unfailing all the way to the doorsteps of my Uncle Theopilus’ estate where Lucille and Max were waiting, with more colored pills and more crystalline dust and more loud music, and I led him there, to his death perhaps and mine, and Ignis, my Ignis, went with me unfailing.

 

\--

 

Lucille was drawn to him like a magnet.

 

His quiet sophistication, his no-nonsense air, his glasses, his lips – everything of him Lucille liked, and she took special delight in fucking him, moaning his name as she lets him take her gracelessly, with the hunger of an animal. Always, he would take Lucille from behind, or any other position that didn’t let him suffer her touching his face, and whenever he takes her, he does it only under my express leave and consent – always he looks to me, sea green eyes searching my own, looking for permission. I would give him leave with the tiniest nod of my head, or the shifting of my lips, and he would obey, no questions asked, and he would strip, lay himself bare and he pins her down and yanks her hair and thrusts into her as I watched.

 

He didn’t like it, I could tell. He didn’t like a damn filthy second of it, didn’t like her touches, her kisses, the way she wraps her legs around his waist or how she cries out whenever his fingers flutter between her legs, driven deep. He kept looking at me, kept locking his gaze with mine, as if he asks me – _is this enough, am I enough, will this be enough to restore you to your senses, will this finally make you stop, will this make you share your anger, will this, will it, will it?_

_Will it make you come back to me?_

 

\--

 

He fights Max for dominance with the savageness of the rabid.

 

If he is graceless with Lucille he is even more so with Max, it is something more beast than man between them – hissing and growing and teeth and bruises blooming upon a high cheekbone. He gives a fight and this exhilarates Max; he grows to have a taste for Ignis in restraints, cuffed to the bed or roped up with the intricate knots of hemp rope, a gag digging between Ignis’ lips. He turns to me still, in these occasions – looks to my eyes and searches me again, searches me for the consent I must give before he himself must consent to all this debauchery consuming us to the bone.

 

Sometimes I give it, and he submits to Max, and if he hated Lucille he hated Max even more but he lets him take him as I watch, and then I crawl over on all fours and join them, and he kisses me as if he’s dying and his hands scramble for me, for he must touch me, _he must_ , and only I, and I alone, can anchor him against this grand fleshy nightmare I had dragged him into.

 

The same questions linger in his sea green eyes, his pupils dilated as mine, and we are high and our senses and on overdrive and the world is a kaleidoscope of color and sensation, and smoke exits my nostrils and something wicked pumps in my veins, and he asks—

 

_Will all these make you come back to me?_

 

\--

 

He is gentle with me.

He reaches for me with the same desperation, but he holds me as if he might break me, and he touches me first, kisses my eyelids, my lips, my forehead – and he runs his hand over my body as he prepares me for him. He marks me just as possessively, bruising my neck, my chest, my hips, takes me into his mouth and brings me to the first wave of pleasure with care that I never see him take with Max or Lucille. His fingers delve and reach and I welcome him, and he joins us with that same care, and as I ride him or sit on his lap, or he takes me from behind, or shamelessly, against the wall or over Max’s desk, he is different.

 

There is always urgency in his thrusts, always he makes me think he’s purging me of the twins’ filth, and he yanks my hair and I say his name and this drives him crazy and he pounds into me and my thighs burn and his chest is hot against my back, his breath ghosting over my cheek.

 

_Noct—Noct—_

Almost as if my name is a prayer, and all the gods should hear him.

 

\--

 

I wake up first and I don’t know what day it is – perhaps Tuesday, or Wednesday, and I’m supposed to be in a school field trip that’s a cruise down in Accordo, sponsored by my father. Instead I’m here in Solheim, in one of the guest rooms in Uncle Theopilus’ palace, and someone’s leg is around my waist and someone else’s arm pins my chest. I fight my way up, and the pile of young bodies beside me do not stir; it will be a while yet before they wake, and the maids and butlers will have cleared away the filth of the party from the previous night.

 

Ignis made the arrangements. Bribed this and that ship officer to report that I was with my class, enjoying the sun and the sea, while in truth we’re here, in this black hole he hates. Two other teenagers are passed out on the floor, twined intimately like lovers, and I step over them. I snatch someone’s shirt and pants, and my sinuses are aching in liquid, heated pain, and I sniff and it smarts, but the pain will ebb, it always does.

 

I push open the nearby connecting door toward Lucille’s room and I find Ignis is already awake, buttoning up his shirt, and there’s a nasty hickey on his neck – something I didn’t make.

 

He turns to me. He turns to me because he has memorized the sound of my footsteps, and he never can turn away from me. I’m still reeling from the tail-end of last night’s high and sex but Ignis is already striding toward me with purpose, coming to a halt right in front of me, checking me – his hands take mine and he upturns my palms, his thumbs rubbing the skin of my wrists.

 

He searches my eyes again in that deep glance of his, and I meet his gaze and say nothing. I felt like crap – I always do during the mornings, and now I’m only just starting to fathom why I suffer all this. He finds what he’s looking for, whatever it is, and he kisses me – his tongue darting into my mouth, and his taste mingles with mine.

 

“Shall we get out of here?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

 

We leave just as the first maids begin clearing out the room, throwing away emptied pill packets and condom wrappers into trash bags. They clear up methodically, their faces blank, and the bigger manservants follow and pick up the teens off the floor and move them on the bed, where they will be tucked under blankets. Wild they may be but these are still the children of Solheim gentry, and their parents will see them safely returned to their own estates, or my Uncle could very well be looking at something just shy of rebellion, or a coup.

 

We leave the palace unhindered, and go out into Solheim’s sunlit, cobblestone streets. We both wear hats as the sun is too bright and hurts our eyes, and Ignis clutches my hand close as if I am some wayward child he will be bound to lose if he didn’t keep a hold on me.

 

I trailed after him uncomplaining, and the shirt I filched off of someone hangs too loosely on me, but I was well past the point of caring. At least the pants were more or less an exact fit, as were the sneakers.

 

We find a coffee shop, and we sit inside, by the furthest corner. Ignis orders brewed coffee for two, and some croissants, and I spread jam into mine and bite down with the hunger of the dying. Ignis is seated beside me and eats at a more sedate pace, though I knew he too, must be starving.

 

“We could leave,” I tell him. Two years – and I had started to tire of Lucille and Max, impatient with her whims and exhausted with his temper once he’s sober. They are remotely charming to me now, and whenever I recall my Conferment, I am all the more convinced I met two different persons in that dance, not these petty and spoiled and mindless twins I fucked with for the past months.

 

Ignis looks at me as if I had never said something more beautiful nor appropriate. “Just say the word.”

 

“Let’s just get better fitting clothes,” I say. I sniff, and pain spreads briefly across my face. It’s quickly gone. “And then board the next train back home. We could stay at my condo.”

 

Ignis nods. “His Majesty isn’t expecting you for two days yet.”

 

“Then we have two days to ourselves,” I tell him, as I reach for my sixth croissant, tear it open, and stuff it with jam.

 

\--

 

We take the train, both of us hiding beneath caps and tinted glasses, hoodies of bright colors instead of our usual black. Ignis got us first-class carriages which guaranteed privacy and our own bunks, and the half-morning trip back to Insomnia we spent holed up in that carriage, the door shut and locked and our blinds drawn down.

 

I’d been laying down on my bunk, the cap over my face, my phone turned off and there’s only the minute hum of the train itself between us, the only sound. I felt Ignis’ weight settle on the mattress and I remove the cap from my face and I find him looking at me – two years, and his face has gone gaunt, worn, his cheekbones more prominent, and his sea green eyes seem to have this lingering, faint hint of being perpetually caught in a headlight.

 

He doesn’t say anything, and so I didn’t say anything back, but eventually he reaches for me, and cupped my cheek with his hand. His thumb ghosts over my skin and his touch distracts me from my sullen thoughts – thoughts of the Citadel and that damned _oracullum_ , its paintings still a puzzle and riddle I could not be bothered to fathom.

 

He curls down over me and our lips touch, and this is as vivid and distinct as the few times we’ve had sex while sober, and even then I didn’t know what to call it – call _us_ – what were we really, when we weren’t high and mindless and half-drooling, minds muddled with fake ecstasy, mouths opened like gaping holes.

 

We kiss – strings upon strings of kisses, punctuated only by soft, minute breaks for the necessity of breath. He can’t help himself – he can’t, he really can’t, and he slides neatly over me, his weight pinning me down in a press, and I squeeze his sides with my clothed thighs.

 

Ignis shivers and I feel his shiver all the way through our clothes, and the very breath he draws electrifies the air between us, thickening it. I rake my fingers down his clothed back, and he’s solid and _he’s mine_ , and I arch my hips against his in an upward roll of my body, and though he’s fully-dressed he grounds his groin against mine, and he trembles and my lips latch onto his neck, and I bruise him, and he trembles between my circling limbs entirely.

 

\--

 

I used to have a tongue stud. A platinum barbell, right in the middle of my tongue, rounded thing. Lucille made me get it a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday, and hiding it had been a pain – I’ve had to consume an unhealthy amount of bottles of potion just to speed up the healing, so I could talk normal without garbling my s’s and my h’s, so I could eat.

 

Lucille liked that stud. Liked it as I used it to pleasure her, my lips flush against her wet and pink folds, her fingers in my hair, yanking hard enough my scalp tingles. I could make her make the most exhilarating sounds with that stud.

 

Ignis too, was no exception. He liked – no, _loved_ it whenever I teased him with it – at first swirling that stud against his sensitive, blunted end, rubbing it against his slit. Then I’d take him slowly into my mouth, carefully swirling my tongue and the stud against his underside, rub it pointedly against that vein there under his shaft. Made him dig his heels into the mattress, bite his own knuckles to try stop the sounds spilling from his lips. His chest heaving and beaded with sweat, his nipples pert and hard against my thumb and forefinger. His toned stomach dipping low, then heaving again, his thighs trembling as he awkwardly tries to spread his legs, offer himself up for me to further eat.

 

I’d edge him – suck on him earnestly, go down on him, bobbing, up, down, up down, press that stud against that minute bulge, make him throb—

 

And then pull back, just as he thinks he’s about to fall the edge, and he’d groan and look at me and release his cock from the hot confines of my mouth, my fingers splayed against his balls.

 

He’d praise me, but I’ve no need of praises—not yet, and I slick myself with lubricant after I withdraw my fingers from his hole, and my cock is heavy between my legs as I crawl over him, and his fingers tremble as he pulls me flush against him and I sink into him and I work him hard, angling my hips and grinding pointedly, his left leg braced against my chest, and I’d find that bundle of nerves and he moans and his fists bunch hard against the sheets, his knuckles going white.

 

I’d rock into him and he meets me thrust for thrust, his come spilling against my fingers, and a few more thrusts sends me following after him, and I fill him as much as he fills me, pearl droplets staining his thighs.

 

\--

 

He tells me Gladio suspects something come autumn, and when the leaves turn golden and brown and start to fall, it’s been months since we’ve both been in Solheim. We’ve found ourselves a local dealer in Insomnia and get our supplies from her instead, and we’ve both decided dust was not our thing, choosing instead to wallow in our multi-colored pills and weed and cigarette. I hated the way dust made my sinuses ache, and we slowly rid ourselves to it, upping our dosages of the pills to make up for the withdrawal that sends tremors down our muscles.

 

But Gladio’s suspicions will remain suspicions for a while more – with Ignis at my side, our excuses were air-tight, and I never miss any more practice than I did back when I was clean and untouched. He’s the perfect collaborator, Ignis, always four steps ahead with excuses and the backing paperwork or pictures if needed, but Gladio is searching and trying to find a misstep, and we knew we had to up our game.

 

\--

 

I flunked five out of eight subjects and my teachers were alarmed. They debate sending a letter directly to my father, and instead they course it through the Royal Household Agency, which is the primary administrative body governing the intimate affairs of the Citadel, particularly the needs of the Royal Family. Ignis pulls his strings and intercepts the letter, and we forge a reply from his uncle Sir Antoninus, Ignis signing the man’s signature so perfectly he could have deceived any handwriting expert.

 

We read the letter to ourselves while we’re high and smoke curls from my lips, and I find it so wildly funny and I laugh with abandon, tears leaking out of my eyes.

 

\--

 

I was on the way to nineteen when we both overdose, and we are both rushed to the hospital. By some unknown miracle I wake first, and I feel terrible and the past years catch up with me. All the excuses are exposed, all the lies, all the forgeries and falsifications, my cousins outed as heavy substance users. I sit on the hospital bed with the IV connected to my arm and my father is there, and he smacks me across the face and the pain that crashes all around me pales in comparison to the smarting of my face.

 

I had put Ignis close to death, and by the tradition of the Scientia family, by willingly going with me into this mess, by following me into my personal hell, _he has failed me_ , and by law and custom he ought to take his own life as payment for this failure. I beg my father. I beg him to save Ignis, and he screams at me, and I did this, _I knew, I did this, I did this to him, I did_ —

 

I clutch at my father’s clothes and beg, and beg, and beg – on my knees if he wanted, beg him to save Ignis. He hits me again and I taste blood in my mouth, and my apologies, useless, echo endlessly in my head.

 

\--

 

We were both thrown into different rehabilitation facilities after that. The Royal Household Agency exhausted all possible means to keep my disgrace under wraps, and the Scientia family debate among themselves on whether or not to replace Ignis with a cousin or so. My father refuses, and when we return from rehab we both make personal oaths to ourselves and to each other to pick ourselves up from this.

 

I return my attention to my cello, heavily neglected for three years. I take up the dear old thing again and replace the strings and tune them, and my fingers are now awkward with the bow as I try to recall how to make music. I try to refocus at school, try to save my last years in by studying doubly, and Prompto is happy that I seem to have returned from the dead. I resume helping him with Math. We both eventually pass all our classes and graduate, but the damage had been done. I never regained my former place in the class top three, and I graduate with no honors.

 

I turn to crown duty, reading Ignis’ reports. I start writing in Luna’s notebook again. I work part time at a sushi joint to occupy my hours, to keep myself distracted when training and further studying and music prove not enough. I work. I work. I keep myself busy.

 

\--

 

We…stop sleeping with each other in that stretch of time. Ignis was ordered by his family to move back to the Citadel, and my condo is vast and silent without him. I miss him, and I keep reaching out to him through texts and calls that he never fails to answer. We talk to each other late into the night—I, blathering about my favorite monster fish documentaries, and he, telling me about his day and about his attempts at the Tenebraian tart.

 

I never tell him he has perfected that tart as far back as his tenth try. This encourages him to keep going, and eventually, his tarts exceed the ones I’ve had in Tenebrae. But his tarts are better, because no two tarts are alike, each one bearing a surprise today different from tomorrow. Today might have strawberry, tomorrow, bananas.

 

\--

 

Gladio is more severe with me after the whole overdosing incident. I can feel it in the force of his charges, parries and downward slashes during our training hours, I can see it in the way he scowls, the way his jaw clenches when he thinks I am not looking. But I notice. I do. He values Ignis as much as I did, maybe more. Even without directly saying anything to me, he makes me feel the blame so acutely, and I falter somehow and lose to him in our spars, and he barks and yells and tells me to pick myself up and that I’ve been sloppy, and this is unforgivable.

 

I bear each verbal onslaught, and I take up my wooden broadsword again, and we charge and we fight and his blame hits me full-force and I silently stand my ground against Gladio’s anger and his resentment, with every swing of my sword and every clack and every hit I take and dish out.

 

\--

 

I’ve just discarded my tongue stud into the trash when the door opens, and I know the sound of his footfalls and I hurriedly rush from the condo kitchen to meet him. Ignis has just gotten himself into the slippers I still leave out for him, and we stand before each other in silence. I look at him, and he looks at me, and though we’ve still met many times back in the Citadel, trained with Gladio together – this is the first time we get to be truly alone since…. _since_.

 

He follows me to the kitchen and I tell him I can cook white clams with linguini, and he hugs me from behind as I’m just rummaging for a pack of linguini noodles the Royal Household Agency had sent my way alongside a month’s fresh stack of groceries.

 

I melt into Ignis’ hold. He kisses my nape, and I tremble, and I’m sober and I’m clean and I reiterate my vow to stay this way, to _never again_ put him close to death, because if that happens once more, then I would never forgive myself.

 

(It does happen. And I have never forgiven myself since.)

 

I drop the pack of linguini noodles and I face him and our lips collide and I wrap my arms around him. He hefts me up against himself, deposits me onto the kitchen counter, and I trap him with my legs too, though I was sure he had no intentions of going away. I kiss him and I drown, and I feel the same urgency in him, and his fingers card into my shirt, trail against my skin, and I pull back if only to rid myself of my shirt, and already he’s getting out of his vest, his dress shirt, and I pull his neck tie off of him.

 

Graceless, the kitchen floor cold and uncomfortable, yet we had done this in worse circumstances, and we weren’t about to stop now. He still fits so perfectly well with me, and our rhythm is something locked in as muscle memory, to be recalled without a thought’s pause or hush.

 

His pleasure drags out my own, and he lays on me, spent, sated, quiet. I fiddle with his hair and nose against his sweat-damp forehead, and he kisses me. This is the first time he actually says the words, and I whisper them back to him.

 

\--

 

My twentieth birthday is celebrated in the Citadel with good food and good music, but the cheer is otherwise dampened with the news that Niflheim advances forward and has turned sights on Insomnia after years of eating away at our territories. Before I call it a night Ignis gives me a copy of the new report; I am still not attending council and rely heavily on his notes, but I’ve been reading more and more since getting out of rehab.

 

I’m in my Crown Prince’s suites at the Citadel and it was probably around two in the morning when I finish reading the notes and summaries, and I lean back on the couch, my neck tie hanging loosely by my neck as I look out the window toward the night skyline of Insomnia, punctuated by lights and flashes of billboards.

 

I hear Ignis moving around, and I smell Ebony coffee. Half a second later he joins me and offers me a cup, which I decline. He lightly touches my cheek and I kiss his palm, and like this, we communicate in silence.

 

It’s in quiet moments like these, with grave news piling at my door, that I feel most sharply this unknown thing that has been looming over me since father started taking me to the _oracullum_. It presses against me from all sides and I feel like choking, and I never tell anyone, not even Ignis, who has returned now to sit beside me.

 

“Bee in your bonnet,” he observes quietly.

“How long do you think we can stay like this?” I ask, and I have no idea where the words come from.

Ignis takes a moment to answer. “As long as we are able.”

“Even if I get passed off to some princess?”

“Even if you get passed to some princess.”

 

“Heh,” I chuckle, and I knew he only said that because— _because_. But we both knew things would change, and I’d be expected to sire heirs, responsibilities that I never started thinking of, until now. I think about it vaguely then, children. When I’d been younger I wanted siblings. Four of them, maybe five. But my father never remarried, and so I remained an only child.

 

But children of my own? The answer came to me simply, as I sipped on my coffee. I didn’t want them. Again my thoughts strayed to my great unknown ghost, and somehow – this looming thing, this unseen burden, and my answer to my own question – it made perfect sense to me.

 

\--

 

The first time I was summoned to council was a month later. There was the long table and everybody else of my father’s cabinet – nobles I had seen here and there, in the hallways of the Citadel or in the balls and dances my father hosted over the years. They all look so old and exhausted in their formal raiment, though I say nothing as I stand there, in a crisp suit, all-black.

 

It’s Sir Antoninus and Sir Clarus who explain the unilateral treaty proposed by Chancellor Izunia of Niflheim to me. _Lucis must forfeit all territories to Niflheim rule, save for Insomnia, which would remain autonomous_. But what would autonomy do to our walled city, when it so depended on the other provinces and regions for support? Niflheim would starve us out, and then we’ll die. That much was apparent to me already and Sir Antoninus and Sir Clarus were not yet done talking. I kept my opinions to myself.

 

“And there’s another condition,” says Sir Antoninus, surveying me from behind his square-rimmed glasses. “The topic of your marriage has finally been breached, Prince Noctis.”

 

And so my inevitability catches up with me.

 

“To whom?” I remember myself asking. Over the years there had been plans, though as far as I knew my father declined all arrangements so far.

 

“To Princess Lunafreya Nox Fleuret of Tenebrae. We are sure you remember her?”

 

“Last I checked I didn’t have amnesia,” I say, to scattered, soft laughter from the council. Sir Antoninus however, did not look impressed.

 

The discussion was straightforward after that – Luna’s dowry, the venue of the wedding. The political implications, as Tenebrae is a suzerainty under Niflheim supervision. What it would mean for the crown I was going to inherit one day. The words swirled around me unheard, though I did my best to filter out important details and file them in my mind for later. But as I stood there I felt numb. I suppose I could’ve taken solace in the fact that I was not being sent off to marry a total stranger, and yet there was the awful lump in my throat, and my long-simmering rage about _all this_ starting up again in the depths of my gut.

 

Here I stood, and decisions were made for me again, and I was – as always, afforded little to no choice. My father watches me and he looks so old. So tired. I hold his gaze briefly, then return my focus onto Sir Antoninus.

 

I was going to be packed off and shipped from Insomnia with only four of my closest companions. The smaller our party, the less likely we would be detected by the empire. I was to proceed to Altissia in all haste, where the wedding would take place.

 

“Have you any questions, Prince Noctis?”  
“None.”  


I bow to the council, to my father, and exit the hall, the double doors closing behind me. As soon as I was sure I would be unobserved, I stood with my back against the wall, and slowly, slowly, I slid down to sit on the floor. I hugged my knees to myself, curled inward, and withdrew into my own roiling thoughts.

 

Despair clawed in my ribs and threatened to consume in an unforgiving sweep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> As you may have noticed, I use both canon and canon divergent elements for this story, though as we go along we will go purely canon divergent on this. The work is inspired by several Ignis blogs I roleplay with on Tumblr, primarily the following: suitedfordark, spxctaculum, violentroads, mumsthewcrd. It is to these amazing players that I dedicate this humble work. 
> 
> Support and suggestions for improvement will be appreciated. Thank you for dropping by!


End file.
